Encore
by Jordy Trent
Summary: It began in the waning years of the third era, when, in a boarding house within a great stone wheel of a city, you lay down to sleep with blood still on your hands. And when you woke, you were not alone...
1. Awake

**~ Encore ~**

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><p><em>Awake<em>

It began in the waning years of the third era, when, in a boarding house within a great stone wheel of a city, you lay down to sleep with blood still on your hands. And when you woke, you were not alone.

"You sleep rather soundly, for a murderer."

The words are more approving than accusatory, delivered in a resonant voice with the slightest hint of an accent not of Cyrodiil. And the speaker, dressed entirely in black, has not come to you by chance. His purpose dawns on you only by degrees, the compelling quality of his voice and eyes making his proposal seem at first reasonable and then _enticing._

He speaks of blood and death, but he also speaks of _love_ and of _family, _something you have never known.

So when he offers a matte black blade, refusal seems all but impossible. You reach out, unthinkingly, to take it; his fingertips brush yours -

-and the jolting of the carriage awakens you to the bitter chill of another era, another part of the world.

"Hey, you. You're finally awake."

They had taken you almost the moment you crossed the border, your path suddenly blocked by grim-faced Legionnaires. Your Imperial captors haven't told you where you're headed, but given the kind of men who are sharing the cart with you, it's not hard to guess.

_A Nord's last thoughts should be of home_, the blond one says. It's been a long time since you had anywhere to call home, but if you think back far enough, it's the black-and-white timbers of Cheydinhal that form in your mind's eye - and the crumbling fort rising from the hillside above it.

You're not likely to see them again.

Standing motionless, hands bound before you, you watch with practised indifference as the first one's head tumbles from his shoulders. And when the executioner readies his axe over your own neck, it's almost a relief. At least it's a _conclusion_ - surely preferable to the listless drag of this existence, which hasn't been the same since the day you opened the door to that lonely farmhouse in the Jeralls and saw-

And at least, unlike _his_ ending, it'll be quick and clean.

That was two hundred years ago, and even had he survived Mathieu Bellamont's treachery, he'd be long dead. Not you, though - your elven lifespan meant there were centuries ahead of you, centuries in which to mourn him. So you offer little resistance as they push you to your knees before the block. Perhaps you'll be going to join him soon, in the eternal shadow.

_Lucien_, you think longingly - your final thought, almost a prayer. And as if in answer, something as black and wicked as the Void itself comes, and you are spared. This may or may not be a good thing; but when the cries and the flames have died down, when you have washed the smoke and grit from your eyes in a bubbling ice-cold spring, you lift your head and look anew at the land laid out before you. The first thing you see clearly is a spray of snowberries, gleaming scarlet against the pristine blanket of white.

They are, you muse, the exact colour of freshly-spilt blood.

Freed, and with little interest in the rivalries of Stormcloak and Empire, you leave ruined Helgen and find your own path.

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><p><strong>Hi everyone. It's great to be writing again after a long gap. If you haven't already, I strongly recommend reading my earlier story 'Lucien's Luck' - 'Encore' is a follow-upcompanion piece. **

**For my Tomb Raider readers: I hope to update Reborn in Shadow soon...it hasn't been abandoned!**


	2. Into Darkness

_Into Darkness_

The old, well-thumbed guide in the Guild library described Skyrim as a land of breathtaking beauty and lethal winters.

The author, you soon discover, was right on both counts. It's still only halfway through Last Seed, but the cold - dear Sithis, the _cold_! It's like a living creature, vicious, biting, gnawing down to the very marrow of your bones, fiercer by far than anything you recall during Cyrodiil's deepest winters.

Ah, Cyrodiil, the lush playground of your youth. You were homesick for it at first, for the placid glimmer of Lake Rumare and the green rolling hills of the West Weald. But that Cyrodiil exists now only in memory. It's small surprise, then, that you should grow to love this land in all its fierce, frozen beauty, from the russet-gold leafdrift of the Rift to the vast ice fields of the Pale and the thousandfold glitter of frost over hard-packed snow; from the salmon leaping in the swift, icy current to the hawks wheeling over the great stone arch of Solitude; from the stark splendor of the open tundra to the white mists drifting over the jagged mountains.

You withdrew from the Family decades ago, lacking the will to continue in their service. Since then wars and internal strife have taken their toll, and the Brotherhood's name is seldom spoken these days. For all you know, they have faded away, just like the mages before them (Bellamont, you think bitterly, would have been delighted.) You've wandered, this past century, across Tamriel, through Argonia's fens, across the sands of Elsweyr and the great Alik'r – finding neither rest, nor any trace of your kin.

But in this cold new land there are whispers, whispers and dark rumors. Your curiosity burns in your blood, and in no time at all you find yourself in Windhelm beside a motherless young boy, listening to his fervent prayers and pitying him, because there's no-one left to answer them.

Really, it's more mercy than murder. But when Grelod crumples to the floor with your dagger in her spine, a chain of events is set in motion.

The note, the black handprint from so long ago – at first it seems like a cruel joke. But then, once again, you find yourself waking to a shadowed presence, at once strange and familiar - tasked with spilling the blood of people who may or may not be deserving. No matter. The old, black appetites are already reawakening, and that's motivation enough.

Nestled in the sombre dark green of Falkreath's pine forest, the Black Door with its carved death's head is a twin to the one beneath Cheydinhal's derelict house. Standing before it you recall, with painful clarity, your first entrance into that Sanctuary, and the faces of your dear brothers and sisters, who welcomed you with such love, never knowing they were destined to die by your blade.

"Silence, my brother."

Stone grinds against stone, and after your long years in exile you shiver all over at the whispered words: W_elcome home_. And once again, you find yourself in the bosom of a family.

_Family…with bonds forged in blood and death._


End file.
